Extracurricular interests are saved as grouped fields on the interests table to allow for multiple entries.

This article describes each of the settings available for configuration when adding a new interest to a record. It also offers best practices for storing interest data.

Interests settings

Interests best practices

• The Interests table stores more complex, multi-field interest records such as those that typically come from an application source, for example, with Interest Type, Name, or Frequency (in hours and weeks per year).

• At the prospect or inquiry stages, applicants are usually expressing a general interest that may change at various stages of the prospective student funnel.

  • As such, we generally recommend using the interests table at the applicant stage, when data is not likely to change, and the student must be logged in to fill it out.

  • Unless you intend to collect these additional details per-interest on your request for information form, a multi-value custom field will likely be the best approach at the prospect or inquiry level.

• Collect extracurricular interests at the prospect or inquiry level with a custom person-scoped field that is set to store multiple values rather than storing this information on the interests table.

📖 Further reading

• Avoid field duplication when adding custom fields and prompts by reviewing the standard fields for storing person data under each section of the profile tab.

• Since the interests fields are grouped data points, you are more likely to run into duplicate interests or inconsistent behavior if collecting this type of data from multiple sources. See Matching Criteria for System Objects for more information about matching on interests.